Is Civilization Based on Beer?

That beer led to civilization is the sort of claim you might find on a crappy t-shirt saying, “BEER! Helping ugly people have sex since forever!” But apparently the beer and civilization theory has been around for a while, and now an archaeologist in Canada called Brian Hayden claims to have more evidence for the idea that the desire to brew beer underpinned the development of agriculture.

In a nutshell (or wheat sheaf), the idea is that grains are a hassle to convert into food, so they didn’t make up a large part of people’s diets. But they can be converted into beer, and people wanted beer to lubricate their feasts, and feasts were a mechanism which helped give rise to more complex societies.

I’d love to believe this, in the same way as I’d love to believe Terence McKenna’s Stoned Ape theory of evolution. And I remember someone explaining to me once in psychedelic detail how, if you were a plant that wanted to ensure your continued existence through the ages, the best way to do that was to make humans’ heads feel funny when consumed. And, Cannabis and Hops are both part of the same plant family.

But I feel we might be, ahem, scraping the bottom of the barrel here. What do you think?

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